Cover Story
Delay of Game
Seaholm, Block 21 challenge the Downtown Domino theory
Heaven Help Us
Heaven Help Us 1985, R, 104 min. Directed by Michael Dinner, Starring Donald Sutherland, John Heard, Andrew McCarthy, Mary Stuart Masterson. Catholic boys school, circa 1965.
Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine
Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine 2003, PG, 90 min. Directed by Vikram Jayanti. This unusual documentary based on chess and grand master Garry Kasparov’s 1997 match against IBM’s computer Deep Blue – to “whom” he lost – is fashioned something like a conspiracy thriller. Acknowledging the symbolic import of the “man against machine” bout,…
The Common Law
Lost or stolen ATM card
Texas Platters
John Schooley & His One Man Band (Voodoo Rhythm) Can you hear that steam whistle blow? It’s John Schooley, man and band. This is a travelin’ album – by rail, by wheel, by wood, and coal. No jet engines here, only industrial sweat and steel. Southern blues stripped to the bare essentials, John Schooley &…
Naked City
New rules clarify when weapon may be used; opponents still dissatisfied
Fever Pitch
Don’t go into the Farrelly brothers’ Fever Pitch seeking an adaptation along the lines of the merely Yankified remix of the Nick Hornby novel High Fidelity: This is not that – not even close.
Pastry Stars
How Katherine Clapner, Judy Marts, and Aimee Olson rose to the top of their profession
Day Trips
New Zion Missionary Baptist Church Barbecue in Huntsville serves a righteous plate of smoked meats with side dishes
Texas Platters
The Bloody TearsDownhanded (Licorice Tree) When Sixties soul bleeds into the millennium by way of Austin’s Bloody Tears, add Lone Star and whiskey to the sequins, fringe, and greasers. The Bloody Tears lead us down to the basement on debut LP Downhanded, a playful mix of Southern blues, rock & roll, and down-home soul. Led…
Point Austin: Money Matters
The city says “Never mind!” on Midtown Live loan – and everybody’s hanging fire
In My Country
Samuel L. Jackson and Juliette Binoche star in this John Boorman political drama about the work of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
TCB
News from Chicago, Las Vegas, Nashville, Houston, New York, and Mexico, all with an Austin connection
Soccer Watch
High school state finals, Landon Donovan comes home
Point Austin: Beside the Point
The debate on the aborted Midtown Live loan proposal is not likely to subside immediately, as several speakers are signed up to address the issue during Citizen Communications at City Council today (Thursday), and Item 37 on the morning agenda is a resolution to appoint a “Blue Ribbon Committee” to assist in making recommendations concerning…
Mail Order Wife
The premise of this gleefully jaundiced mockumentary is simple: A filmmaker pays the expenses of a Queens doorman buying a bride from Burma in exchange for the opportunity to film the proceedings.
Wild Rides
UT students pack bigger, better New Works Festival with more thrills than a carnival midway
Liquid Assets
A fair competition
Three for Block 21
What the City Asked For: The city issued a request for proposals for developers with specific projects for Block 21, immediately north of the new City Hall. Minimum criteria included: • Buying the land outright for a price of at least $9.2 million. (This is about midrange, in per-square-foot terms, for recent Downtown land sales.)…
Taking Children Private
The road to privatizing Child Protective Services is getting slick and dangerous
University Co-op Presents the 2005 David Mark Cohen New Works Festival
This year’s New Works Festival runs eight days with performances beginning at 2pm each day and ending sometime around midnight. Works are being performed in a variety of spaces around the Winship Drama Building, 23rd and San Jacinto, some of them quite small and able to seat 15-50 people. The schedule has been organized with…
Food-o-File
The ‘Saveur’ Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival revs up, Uchi chef Tyson Cole racks up the awards, and more
Four for Seaholm
What the City Asked For: Unlike with Block 21, the city sought not specific proposals but issued a “request for qualifications and development concept” for reuse of the old power plant and its environs. As such, the Seaholm criteria are far more suggestive than prescriptive; nothing has yet been decided about whether to sell or…
Lege Notes
Odds and ends (mostly odds) from the 79th
Festival Schedule by Day
Friday, April 8 6:30pm Festival Fiesta, Winship Atrium 8pm Cause and Effect, Payne Theatre 9:30pm Momentahn, Lab Theatre Gracie and Rose, Winship 2.180 Finito, Winship 1.134 10:15pm Festival Opening Ceremony, Brockett Theatre Saturday, April 92pm Cause and Effect, Payne Theatre Wonderment of Light as It Dances, Robotics Lab 7pm Gracie and Rose, Winship 2.180 Finito,…
It Takes a Village
Christine Albert & Chris Gage experience another Austin musical rite of passage: the benefit
Scrap It or Cap It? What to Do With Texas’ Top Ten Percent Law.
Some want to do away with the post-‘Hopwood’ admissions law, but UT officials and others say it works
The Hightower Report
Privatization hasn’t been a rosy ride for others; and Bill Hammond crowned Gooberhead for job peddling for son in letter to legislators
Maple Leaf Wags
If it’s Hyde Park, this must be a quirky Canadian comedy.
For the Benefit of Mr. Glasse
The Glasse family were in a wreck Thanksgiving weekend – someone crashed into them going 40 mph. Paul absorbed most of the impact. Their car was totaled. His wife, Nine, had to have an emergency C-section and is recovering from a fractured pelvis. The baby was two months early and in the neonatal unit at…
Keel-Hauling Death Row Defendants
Austin Rep. wants to fast-track federal appeals, speed up executions
A Martyr’s Epitaph
The Texas Documentary Tour presents Rob Epstein’s ‘The Times of Harvey Milk’
About a Girl
The art exhibit ‘About a Girl’ is about music, really, with three young men behind it basing their artwork on a song
Swan Songs
After the benefit, Chris and I had an overwhelming desire to give back and began to think, “Where do we go from here?” Several years ago I was asked to sing at a gathering of friends and family as a 40-year-old man faced his final weeks. Another time I sang in a hospital room for…
CTRMA Responds to Strayhorn: ‘I Am Rubber. You Are Glue …’
Heiligenstein answers audit, says comptroller attacks unwarranted
What a Longer, Stranger Trip It’s Been
Jim Van Bebber on ‘The Manson Family’
So Long, Palmer
Before spring is out, contractors will begin tearing down old Palmer Auditorium so it can be become the Long Center for the Performing Arts
Texas Platters
Ana EggeOut Past the Lights (Grace/ParkinSong) The prodigal chanteuse cruises back into Austin – half-time, anyway – her motorcycle side bags weighted with sound and voice. At the New Mexican’s millennial ride-out, Ana Egge was an already past-promising young singer-songwriter. With her fourth LP Out Past the Lights, which leapfrogs two local releases and a…
Naked City
Quote of the Week “I don’t know if there is a cause-and-effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. … And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters, on some occasions, where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to…
Also at the Alamo
Luke Savisky’s Rolling Roadshow ‘Film Actions V,’ ‘Stranger: Bernie Worrell on Earth,’ with the P-Funk All- Star in attendance, and Peter Bogdanovich live in person screening ‘The Last Picture Show,’ ‘Paper Moon,’ and ‘Mask’
Arts Review
Stephen Mills’ ‘Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project’ didn’t show us the Holocaust but it made us feel the profound suffering of it
Texas Platters
The No Idea FestivalChurch of the Friendly Ghost, April 1-2 If you approached the Church of the Friendly Ghost last weekend, you might have heard wailing, growling, and shrieking. It was not an exorcism. Well, not in the church-sanctioned sense. For three nights, the No Idea Festival infiltrated East Austin, where improvisers from across the…
Naked City
Proposal could add $45 million to general fund
‘Sahara’ Premiere
Matthew McConaughey and UT football coach Mack Brown attend the Austin Film Society’s screening of ‘Sahara’ at the Paramount Theatre
In Person
Barry Glassner on fear in the media and how to hide a pony
Texas Platters
Geto BoysThe Foundation (Rap-A-Lot) What better way to kick off a Geto Boys reunion than having Bushwick Bill state matter-of-factly, “Give me a muthafuckin’ Henny shottie and a bump of PCP, I’ll kill anybody.” Nearly a decade has passed since Bill, Scarface, and Willie D cut an album, yet the 5th Ward Houstonians are still…
Naked City
Minority party hijacks casino issue from religious right
TV Eye
Here’s what I learned about the so-called homosexual agenda from the ‘Sugartime!’ episode: Don’t hide your chocolates in the laundry
Page Two
If you support the smoking ban, don’t pretend you want to keep Austin weird
Texas Platters
PushmonkeyYear of the Monkey (Trespass) Pushmonkey successfully balances accessible melody with between-the-eyes, lead-boots delivery. Celebrating a decade together, the heavy Austin quintet hasn’t had longevity merely handed to them, touring through the ranks, self-releasing tapes, giggin’ at Ozzfest and with Godsmack, Kid Rock, and Fuel, and being “discovered” by Arista. So where to now, in…
Naked City
Warren Chisum’s HJR 6 doesn’t discriminate against anyone … except gays and lesbians
DVD Watch
All of the director’s classic themes and techniques are here, but ‘Kagemusha’ also ushered in a new period in Kurosawa’s style, one influenced by the countless hours, months, and years he spent painting imagined scenes from the movie as he waited dejectedly for funding to come in
About AIDS
A national grassroots effort, the Campaign to End AIDS (C2EA), is under way to mobilize government at all levels about HIV/AIDS. C2EA will hold an introductory community lunch forum on Saturday, April 9, noon to 1:30 pm, hosted by AIDS Services of Austin. Campaign co-chair Charles King of New York City’s Housing Works will be…
Texas Platters
Treatin’ ‘Em Right Since ’69: A Tribute to Handsome Joel Svatek (Arclight) Red River wept on Jan. 29, 2003, when its unofficial mayor, “Handsome” Joel Svatek, sustained fatal injuries after being rear-ended by a drunk driver. Even in death, Joel casts a long shadow over the “dogleg” where he spent so many nights, as illustrated…
Naked City
HB 2 and HB 3 could look very different after they leave the Senate
The Upside of Anger
The two fantastic performances by Allen and Costner that anchor The Upside of Anger are the reason to see this contemporary drama about romance between two flawed adults.
After a Fashion
This week your Style Avatar makes the Red Carpet Scene at the premiere of ‘Sahara’ and Robert Rodriguez’s ‘Sin City’ and remembers DeLorean
Texas Platters
Honky Tonk Heroby Billy Joe Shaver, assisted by Brad Reagan University of Texas Press, 189 pp., $19.95 A Tribute to Billy Joe Shaver Live (Compadre) During the last few years, Texas music poet laureate Billy Joe Shaver has gone increasingly multimedia. Besides his film work, from Secondhand Lions to SXSW 04 documentary The Portrait of…
Naked City
Aguero resigns for personal and family reasons
Nobody Knows
Nobody Knows is the rare film that successfully tells its tale of childhood from the children’s point of view, forgoing easy sensationalism and poignancy for naturalism and honesty.
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
There are more chickens than people waiting six months at a red light
Texas Platters
The WinksToo Hot to Be This Cool (Super Secret) Imagine Tura Satana from Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! starting a punk band after too many tallboys and you’ll understand the eternal bad girl camp at the heart of this local endeavor. The women of the Winks cultivate a saucy, swaggering dynamic that keeps their otherwise straightforward…
Naked City
But scores show improvement
Assisted Living
Greenebaum’s superstylized first feature attempts to mesh fiction with nonfiction while remaining a narrative, and it attempts to do it almost entirely in the confines of a nursing home, entirely in one day.
To Your Health
Tips on preventing wrinkles
Texas Platters
Fire Marshals of Bethlehem Songs for Housework (Buildgut) Who decides when there’s no room at the inn? The Fire Marshals of Bethlehem. That’s the name of this project conceived by Austin music scene vets John Croslin and Kevin Carney. Croslin, best known as a member of Eighties indie rockers the Reivers, has produced acts like…
Naked City
Eastside activists confront developer over pricey new lofts
Sahara
Based on the popular Clive Cussler book, Sahara may be asinine, but it’s also goofy, good fun.
